Child Urged to Take Exam From Hospital Bed

Huck/Konopacki Labor Cartoons

In a recent post I pointed out the absurdity of the California Democratic Party’s criticism of the education reform movement because of its commodification of children. As vulgar and impersonal as it may seem to sensitive, liberal ears, in purely economic and political terms students have always been commodified as a consequence of schools’ function in preparing them for their roles as future workers.

While the ed reformers have succeeded raising the influence of test scores as a measure of students’ worth, this measure preceded the current wave of ed reform, as did others, like grade point averages, participation in honors or advance placement classes, student government and athletics. However, the ed reform movement has succeeded in raising the stakes of test scores to the point that schools are punished when an insufficient percentage of their student body participates. Consequently, tests become not only a way to measure a student’s value to future employers, but a way (albeit imprecise and often inaccurate) to measure schools’ value to taxpayers. Schools that perform poorly or that cannot manage to get sufficient numbers of their students to participate are wasting state resources that could be going toward lowering taxes on the wealthy and their businesses.

Therefore, all children must take the tests, regardless of whether they are ready or willing (or even physically able).

When considered in this light, it should not be surprising that a teacher showed up Cohen Children’s Medical Center to administer a New York State exam to Joey Furlong, a 4^th-grader with life threatening epilepsy who was hooked up to machines while awaiting brain surgery, according to Valerie Strauss. Apparently, his family had already made arrangements with his school to make up the exam after he had recovered and was out of the hospital, but this was trumped by a state law requiring schools to provide instruction to children there for more than three days.

In the end, the state of New York conceded that Joey’s medical condition was even higher stakes than its trifling exam and allowed Joey to undergo his medical procedures without having to endure the additional stress of a “high stakes” test. Or, perhaps the authorities believed his test scores would improve without all the machines hooked up to his body.

California Passes Rectal Injection Bill For Teachers

If the headline doesn’t make it perfectly clear, crazy California has passed perhaps the looniest piece of legislation ever. SB161, which asks teachers to rectally inject diastat (valium) into students who are having epileptic seizures, just passed the state assembly on a vote of 47-16, with 17 abstentions.

Fortunately, teachers and other staff may volunteer to give the injections, but are not required to. I say fortunately, because the instructions say that only personnel trained by medical professionals should administer the medication. The instructions require the medicine to be injected rectally while the patient is in the midst of a seizure, something that would be difficult even for trained personnel and that could easily result in mistakes that harm the student.

Click here for a demonstration video on how to administer Diastat

Refuse and Resist

All teachers should refuse to volunteer. They should refuse because this is a job for trained medical personnel like nurses, who the state should be adequately funding at every school site. They should refuse because it sets them up for liability should they make a mistake. They should refuse because it is not in their job description or training to strip students publicly, stick things into their rectums, and have to maintain the order and discipline of their remaining 30-35 students while they do so. And they should refuse out of solidarity with their nurse colleagues who have been pushed out of the schools as a result of budget cuts.

The nurses unions oppose the legislation, not only because it encourages the downsizing of nursing staffs (if teachers can administer medicine, then why do we need nurses?), but also because it is dangerous for students. Sandre Swanson (Dem., Oakland) implored his colleagues to vote no, saying they should “work immediately to fund nurses at schools,” according to the Sacramento Bee. Unfortunately, his Democratic colleagues ignored his pleas and voted for the bill.

CA Teachers to Inject Students Rectally

Teacher's new tool (image by Zaldyimg)

SB 161 (Huff), a bill that allows non-medical personnel to administer Diastat rectally to students having epileptic seizures, has passed the California Senate and is now in the Assembly. It also has the support of the Obama administration.

On first glance, the legislation is so absurd it sounds like a sick joke. Teachers will pull down a student’s pants in front of classmates and jab a syringe into his or her ass? In any other circumstance, we’d call such behavior molestation or abuse or practicing medicine without a license.

Here are the problems. All students are allowed equal access to educational services, regardless of disability, including epileptics and diabetics (the legislature also wants teachers to inject diabetic students, just not necessary in their rectums). Diabetics and epileptics sometimes have seizures in class, during which they are unable to inject themselves. Thus, there is a need for someone to be on hand to provide this potentially life-saving service. The only people at schools trained to do this safely, legally and with dignity are nurses, but we have stripped away so much funding from public education that schools can no longer afford full-time nurses. Many schools do not have nurses at all.

The solution, however, is not to put sharp, potentially dangerous needles (or plastic syringes without needles, in the case of diastat) into the hands of untrained non-medical personnel, who are at the same time responsible for the safety and learning of 20-35 other children. It is madness and stupidity, conceivable only because teachers are already so beaten down professionally and their unions so weak that politicians believe they can continue to defund schools and simply pile more and more work onto the teachers, regardless of how dangerous, irresponsible or stupid it is to do so.

Furthermore, ALL students, even those without disabilities, should have access to licensed and appropriately trained medical staff to ensure proper care. Legislation like SB 161 legitimizes and normalizes a world without school nurses, thus placing all students at risk of complications or death from illnesses and injuries that a trained school nurse would normally identify, treat or refer to a doctor. School nurses also have the potential to increase the amount of time students are in class by helping low income students manage minor injuries, disease, hunger or malnutrition that might otherwise keep them home or escalate into an emergency room visit.

Giving injections is not a trivial matter. There are obvious risks, like the spread of HIV and other blood-borne diseases, either through poor training or carelessness, or because teachers may be distracted by their other students, running round, screaming, rough housing or having their own medical emergency. However, the administration of Diastat (which does not use a needle) requires that the provider correctly identify the type of seizure the student is having, administer the drug properly in the rectum and at the correct dosage. It is only used for “cluster” seizures, yet there are many types of seizures, and distinguishing between them is no easy task, especially for a teacher who may never have seen a seizure before and who is likely scared.  If done incorrectly, the injection could cause death from respiratory failure. Furthermore, SB 161 does not provide funding to train teachers, nor does it provide liability protection.

Recommendations by the CTA for its Members and Supporters

• Contact your lawmaker using CTA’s Legislative Action Center.
• Read CTA's official letter of opposition to SB 161.
• Read the opposition letter from the California School Nurses Association.

Recommendations by Modern School for the CTA

• Stop wasting so much time and money buying politicians
• Stop running scared and making compromises with abusive politicians in the desperate hope that the abuse will end (it doesn’t in domestic abuse, why should we believe it would here?)
• Start investing the majority of union resources on organizing members and educating the public
• Prepare for a wave of strike actions, including a general strike, not just to oppose SB 161, but all the attacks on the teaching profession (e.g., pension reform, ending seniority, weakening tenure, increasing class sizes, testing, charter schools) AND for massively increased funding so all schools are adequately staffed with nurses, librarians, counselors and support staff